


From a Blue Sky

by RingThroughSpace



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, COVID-19, Coronavirus, Freeform, Gen, Hopefully AU, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Whump, not a lockdown romance either, not the Christmas special you were looking for, this is 2020 folks, trigger warning: coronavirus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23576194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RingThroughSpace/pseuds/RingThroughSpace
Summary: I'm worried about that virus,Ryan texts Yaz one night.I'm not,she replies.The Doctor said we'd be safe here. She wouldn't have sent us home just so we could die. She would have said something.Would she?Yes.OR: Her fam isn't going to rescue her. She's going to have to rescue them.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	1. Normal Again

"Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise."  
- _The Plague_ (Camus)

"I'm home," she tells her parents. If they can tell she's faking her smile, they don't press for details.

She trudges into her room. It's not dark yet, but she's tired. Whatever sleep cycle she'd been in on the TARDIS, it wasn't the same as Earth. She stares out the window, too exhausted to cry.

When she wakes up, the sky is a pre-dawn gray. _Glaciers,_ she thinks. She'd been dreaming about snow. The Doctor had once mentioned a world of bird people, with sharp mountains and snow covered hills, and that's where she wants to go --

It hits her then. _She's dead._ She won't be going anywhere again, ever.

She still can't cry. She stares up at her ceiling, trying to collect her thoughts. _Tea._ She wants tea. And biscuits. She could go into the kitchen -

She blinks back tears this time, but she forces herself out of bed.

She has a life. She needs to live it.

****

The cafe has just opened when Yaz arrives. The boy at the counter offers her a smile.

"A latte, please," she says. "Small. And a scone."

"We'll get right on it," he says, but he makes no move. She waits for a moment. "Do you have a credit card?"

"Oh," she says, flushing. The last time she'd ordered a coffee was on a station in Haven 5, where they used retinal scanners and the only payment they'd accepted was DNA. And before that --

She shakes her head. _I'm back,_ she tells herself firmly. She's going to stay here. She needs to accept that.

She takes her latte and scone and sits down. There's a paper on the table with a headline about Brexit. She pushes it aside.

She reaches for her mug and then scowls. There's a heart poured into the foam. Yaz grabs her spoon and swirls it into nothingness before she takes a sip.

****

"I'm back," she tells her superiors. "For good, I think, this time."

It's hard, but she forces herself to work every day. It's good to be outside. Good to stick to a schedule. Good not to lose herself.

Good not to sit inside.

Ryan and Graham invite her over, but she avoids them. She needs to focus on herself. Needs to get acclimated again to life on Earth. Needs to stop thinking about things she'll never be able to do.

She'd never realized how small her parents' flat was before. How small and mundane their lives were. During the week, they had toast and tea for breakfast. Most nights, they sat and watched the BBC news on the telly.

Yaz arrives late one night to find the news on. There's a plate waiting for her on the counter, but she ignores it. "Meanwhile, in China-" a newscaster begins.

Yaz sighs, steps into her room, and closes the door. She's seen the Mongol invasion. She's met her grandmother's first husband. She has no interest in recent events.


	2. Lockdown

Just because she's ignored the news doesn't mean her friends have.

 _I'm worried about that virus,_ Ryan texts her one night. _They cancelled Graham's appointment. They told him to stay home._

 _I'm not,_ she replies. _The Doctor said we'd be safe here. She wouldn't have sent us home just so we could die. She would have said something._

_Would she?_

_Yes._

There's activity from Ryan but no reply.

Five days later, the entire country goes into lockdown.

***

It's a chilly damp day. If it weren't for the lockdown, Yaz wouldn't want to be outside, but she's been inside enough that even sitting on damp concrete steps overlooking a city street is better than staying indoors.

She's been eating her lunch with her coworker Jill recently. They're obeying every rule, sitting nine feet apart on separate blankets they've brought out just for this purpose. Yaz rubs hand sanitizer on her hands before pulling out her curry. "Big plans for the weekend?" Yaz asks. It's a joke, of course. No one has plans anymore.

"I was thinking of going clubbing," Jill says in a lighthearted tone. She clears her throat and coughs. Yaz looks over just in time to catch the shock on her face.

"Are you okay?" Yaz asks.

"Allergies," Jill says. "Mold. Maybe I should clean the house instead."

Out of the corner of her eye, Yaz sees a flash of blond hair. It's a woman on the opposite street. Yaz sits up. "Doctor!" she says, without thinking. "Doctor, it's me!" She takes a step towards the curb before catching herself. The woman ignores her, and a passing car blocks her view. When Yaz can see her again, she realizes that the build is wrong.

It wasn't her. Not that it could be.

"You okay, Yaz?" Jill asks.

Yaz nods, returning to her seat. "Just - seeing things. Thought I saw an old friend."

"A lot of that going around. I think it's stress."

Jill takes another bite of her sandwich and then turns her back on Yaz and nearly doubles over coughing.

"Jill?" Yaz asks. She hovers behind her hesitantly. "Are you-?"

Jill nods, still coughing. The fit subsides, and she takes a drink from her water bottle before she speaks again. "I'm good, Yaz. Went down the wrong pipe." Her voice shakes as she says the words. "This thing is spooking everyone."

"I know," Yaz says. "It'll be fine, though. I have a friend. She -- sees things, sometimes. She said it was going to be alright. Nothing's going to happen."

Jill's smile is unsteady. "I hope she's right."

"She's the best person I know," Yaz says. "It seems scary now, but we're all going to pull out safe in the end."

 _How are you holding up?_ Yaz texts Ryan that night.

The next morning, the message is still unread.


	3. Prison

She paces the cell, her hands tucked under her arms. It's cold in this room. She misses her coat. It's _hard_ to find a woman's coat with good pockets. She's going to have to make sure she takes it with her when she leaves.

When she escapes.

But how?

Life sentence. _Regeneration?_

No. Too big of a loophole, that. _The same bio-signature._ If nothing else, they'd have cameras, and it would be hard to convince anyone she was a different person.

 _Contact,_ she thinks impulsively. Silence, of course. It would be too much to ask for. The prison is telepathically sealed, he's dead (probably), and he wouldn't have helped. _I don't have a good side,_ he'd told her. Perhaps that body didn't.

Her fam - but they don't even know she's alive. Or how to find her, even if they did.

She's not even sure how much they know about her.

 _I'm an open book,_ she'd said. But she hadn't been.

Things will be different once she gets back. She's going to tell them everything.

Assuming they find her.

Sheffield. Her fam would have a good life in Sheffield. It won't matter if she can't get back. They'd seemed ready to go, reluctant to travel with her. They'd wanted to settle down. And it wouldn't be a bad time to be alive. The dawn of the third decade in the twenty-first century, a time when anything seemed possible. Seven billion people. The world connected as it hadn't been before. There would be a few hiccoughs in the way, of course, but -

She freezes. The third decade of the twenty-first century. Spring 2020.

How could she have been so _stupid_? She had been so concerned with her own issues, so concerned about Gallifrey, that she hadn't even thought about Earth.

Herd immunity. For an unbelievable few weeks, the UK government was going to go for herd immunity, and tens of thousands of people would die for it in the first wave alone.

Graham would be vulnerable. Vulnerable but sensible. He would be fine, she tells herself. He would stay at home, stay _inside_ where it was safe. Ryan would stay with him. Ryan would be fine.

And Yaz.

Yaz would be young and healthy, and when the lockdown order came, she would be asked to enforce it. And months later, during the second wave, when the field hospitals were overflowing and patrol cars started to double as ambulances, when, in some villages, half the medical staff called in sick at once --

For the life of her, she can't remember if Sheffield was among them.

And before that. For the first month, they would think young people were invulnerable. Yaz would be on the front lines, then, before they realized how the virus affected everyone.

Yaz _wouldn't_ be on the front lines, she tells herself firmly, because she wouldn't be there. She will have to go and pick her up, pick her entire family up, make sure they weren't there when things started to happen.

They aren't going to come rescue her. She has rescue them.

She's pacing again. She needs to think of something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "how could she not have remembered?" is "a rip in the space-time continuum that needs to be set right," but I figured that would be way too much wish fulfillment right now.
> 
> Please review if you get the chance!


	4. Chapter 4

It's four days later when Yaz gets a call from her superior. "Jill has a fever. You'll need to isolate yourself until you're tested."

The nasal swab is ugly, and she misses the Doctor's sonic. She spends the next few days in her room, bored more than frightened. _We're safe in the twenty-first century,_ she tells herself.

Once this is all over, she's going to travel. She looks up ski resorts in the Alps and Chinese tourist traps. She wants to see Mayan ruins.

She resolutely avoids thinking about anywhere else she wants to go.

Three days after the swab, she gets a notice. Negative. She has dinner with her family that night, and she goes into work the next day smiling.

Maybe she'll be fine after all.

***

The oddest thing is, she _remembers_ this place.

After an unbelievably long three days in isolation, they let her out long enough to go to the cafeteria. She's standing in line, waiting for her meal, when something about the angle of the corridor strikes her as strange.

It looks _familiar._

Not that that should be a surprise. There's only so many styles of architecture, and none of them are unique. But there's something about the angle of the hallway, the way that the stone strikes the floor, the shadows of the room, the way the people are standing in line, that gives her an overwhelming sense of familiarity.

"Hey! Hurry up!" a guard barks at her. She moves and the moment passes.

The feeling remains.

When she goes back to her cell, she paces the floor, trying to calm herself by counting out floor tiles. _Thirty five._ There are thirty five floor tiles, she knows, even before she begins, even counting the asymmetric one in the corner.

She furrows her brow in confusion. How many steps from one corner of the room to the next? _Seven._ She doesn't know why she thinks it. She closes her eyes and begins. _One, two, three, four, five -_

"Ow!"

She's bumped her nose. Maybe she's wrong.

***

In May, they start to release the restrictions. By June, if you ignore the ubiquitous masks and the thermal detectors and the ways crowds are somehow not as dense as they used to be, things almost seem to be normal.

It was just a blip. The Doctor was right. Stranger things have happened in the past.

Everything's going to be fine.

Sometimes, at night, she looks at the prices of plane tickets to South America. Maybe she'll go this fall.


	5. Chapter 5

It's the ennui that's getting at her.

She's pacing again, eyes open, trying to avoid thinking. She wants to leave. This body has _energy_ , and she wants to spend it doing something other than pacing the floor of a tiny cell.

It feels like she's been here forever. Trapped in this room, with the cracked and wobbling floor tiles and the bed with the broken mattress spring, and the buzzing light --

She stops. _What light?_

The entire ceiling emits a faint glow, but the surface seems smooth. _Smart of them._ She'd be gone by now if there were exposed electronics.

She walks around the edge of the room, looking up where the ceiling touches the wall. _Right there._ There's a tiny gap, nothing that anyone would notice unless they knew where they were looking.

She _remembers_ this place.

She leans against the wall, studying the gap. It's small, but it means there are things above the ceiling. But first she has to reach it.

The bed is heavy, but she's able to push the head a few centimeters. She moves around to the foot of the bed and pushes, then goes back to the head and -

Snap!

"What's going on?" a guard shouts. He comes down the corridor and peers in the room through the window. He's tall, his hair and eyes both unnatural shades of red. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," she says, jumping to the side.

He narrows his eyes at the bed - now a bit further from the wall than it had been before - but says nothing, and eventually he walks away.

When he's gone, she goes over to the side of the bed to inspect it. One of the feet has gotten caught in a floor tile and splintered it.

She has a hard time concentrating on that, though. All she can think about is the guard. She remembers _him_ , too.


	6. Chapter 6

It's risky to try to figure out why she remembers the guard.

 _Sheffield_. She needs to get to Sheffield, and that means she needs to not get distracted by the memories of other people she once was.

Not that not thinking about the memories makes things better.

Staring at the walls, she starts to see visions of a phantom Yaz manifest in front of her. She's coughing, her forehead drenched in sweat. "You said you'd keep us safe, Doctor," Yaz says accusingly. She draws in a breath and then is consumed by another coughing fit. "You said we were your fam."

"I didn't know!" she tries to scream, but the words are wrong. How could she _not_ know? She's the Doctor. She's supposed to know these things.

"I'm going to get back," she says instead. "I'm going to save you."

She closes her eyes then, dozing. She's back in the prison cafeteria, in her cell, pacing, furious for reasons she can't remember.

And then she's not herself anymore. She's on a mission to assassinate an entire royal family.

 _I need to go somewhere,_ she thinks when she wakes up, but for sixty-seven seconds, the obligation she can think about is the massive debt she'd skipped out on at a brothel.

( _Liked them,_ she thinks. _Wrong of me to leave them like that._ She'd have gone back, but-)

_Whorehouse debts. Assassination._

Who _were_ these people?

And which one had been _here_?

***

It's late June before Yaz sees Jill again.

She's impossibly thin, panting with exhaustion when she sits down at her newly reconfigured desk. They've rearranged the office, of course, and Jill's new desk is closest to the window.

"How are you feeling?" Yaz asks her.

Jill shrugs. "Tired," she says. "Weak." She gestures at the waterbottle on her desk. "The doctors worry about kidney damage. This thing does a lot to you." She smiles slightly. "Thanks for the groceries. They probably saved my life. I was too tired to move."

"Anyone would have done it."

"Nobody else did," she says. "So thank you." The silence lags. "I was thinking of getting a tattoo. To celebrate surviving. Would you like to come with me?"

Yaz looks up, startled, and then smiles. "Yeah," she says. "I would. What were you thinking of?"

"A vine," Jill says. "It was outside my window while I was sick. 

Their fingers graze, and Yaz feels a spark. It's the closest she's been to someone outside her immediate family in months.

***

The next day, she scans the cafeteria. For all the crowd, there's only three humanoids present - a tall woman, a stout man, and the guard she'd seen earlier. _Which one of you is me?_

She's tried to avoid focusing on her new memories. She needs to get _out_. She can't waste time brooding. If she hadn't been so focused on Gallifrey, maybe she would have remembered the plague -

There's a loud crash, and she looks up with a start. She's brooding again - _bad idea_ \- but now she scans the room again.

The tall woman is sitting at another table, calmly eating. She barely seems to have noticed the crash at all. The man seems startled momentarily, but he's back to talking to one of his friends.

And the guard.

 _He must be new,_ she realizes. He's shocked, eyes wide. Hand on a holster - _it's an engineering problem, you can't shoot an engineering problem_ \- staring at the door with wide eyes.

Something about this scene jogs her memory ( _but whose?_ ), but it's hard to place. _So many people._ So easy to get lost in it. So easy to slip into disorganized millennia-old obligations (there's an old woman on Hasnean Prime that she owes a million credits to; that brothel debt she needs to do something about - and does she really need to pay off her own _gambling_ debts?) and lose track of the _very real_ fam she's left alone in -

The lights flicker, and she freezes. "Get down!" she hisses, without even knowing why. She grabs the shoulder of the prisoner besider her. "Get down!" she hisses, pushing the woman behind her as she dives under the table and -

Another flicker, another crash, and then screaming as the ceiling bursts into flames.

 _Why do I remember this?_ she wonders even as she feels the heat of the fire on her face. The memory is fuzzy, disturbingly vague. _Smoke, shock, and then -_

 _Gallifrey_ , she thinks. The reddened skies and ash-strewn streets. The empty buildings and broken glass. All she can think of is Gallifrey, dust falling on her face -

It's not ash that's coating her face. Sprinklers on the walls are spraying foam, coating all of the surfaces with a fine powder. Less than a minute later, the fire is gone, leaving a silent room lit only by red security lights.

"Thank you," says the other woman as they emerge from under the table. She waves her mandibles, trying to clear the powder from her eye sockets. "I hate it when that happens. It's hard to get foam out of my scales. I'm sorry it didn't work, though."

"Work?"

"You triggered that explosion, right? I assume that was your team trying to break you out."

"I-" she starts. "No."

The woman seems to disbelieve her. "I'm sorry, then. It was a good call. I'd thought you'd expected it."

"Does it happen often?"

"The fire? Every few years. It's well sealed, but the facilities are poorly built."

"What about people breaking out?"

The woman waves her mandibles in the equivalent of a shrug. "Sometimes. It usually doesn't work. They've got pretty good security fields on most of the doors. Sensors. They can tell if a prisoner has escaped."

"Can they?" _That's_ good information to know, too.

"Biosignatures. They keep them of all the prisoners. They can tell if you're in the room."

 _Biosignitures._ They would notice if they had duplicates.

She looks around the cafeteria again. The tall woman is scowling at the mess of her food, while the man is still joking with his friends. The guard -

The guard is terrified.

 _It's you,_ she thinks. _It's got to be you._

But how?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuity errors are, of course, my own.
> 
> If you like this, please let me know!


End file.
